GILPIN — ON THE MASIjVIALIA OF NOVA SCOTIA. 49 



tussock grass there abounding, he makes his simple form — his- 

 food the various grasses, and when he can obtain it, the tender 

 twigs and bark of the white birch. It is a common practice to fell 

 a white birch in the forest to attract them. The next morning the 

 numerous tracks in the snow and the many victims, each snared in 

 his treacherous noose, attest their numbers about, though you may 

 have searched the forest around the day before, and unseen, soli- 

 tary, vigilant, each hidden in his shallow form, not one would 

 have met your view. The tender buds of the black poplar and the 

 leaves of the pyrola are both said to afford them food. The female 

 brings forth her young in May or early in June, from four to six at 

 a litter. She is said to have two litters in the year in southern N.. 

 England ; but here, judging from the size of the young, I do not 

 think she produces more than one, though of this I am uncertain.. 

 Entirely defenceless, depending upon her extreme watchfulness for- 

 her safety, she seems an easy banquet spread for our carnivora.. 

 The crafty fox and sly lynx prey upon her. The great tree- 

 vreazels, the fisher and the martin, hunt her down. The weazel 

 winds on her doubles, and men and idle boys cross her path with 

 snares, and yet nevertheless such is her fecundity and vigilance that 

 she in her generations will see them all out. The number of sixty 

 thousand skins collected by one man at Halifax, during oue season,, 

 attest her present number in the Province. 



Such is our varying hare ; our forests abound with them, yet 

 only tvfice, except at the April meeting, have I ever met them. 

 Once a half-breed dog put one up, and I had the opportunity of 

 seeing two or three nice doubles, before she came into the open.. 

 Here the stupid hound ran headlong over her scent, and she 

 escaped. Once again I saw one, near an old saw mill, sitting on. 

 her haunches, her long ears pushed forward, and fore leg hanging 

 loose. In the April before spoken of, I stood upon a tussock of. 

 winter killedi^rass and counted seven that I could have tapped with, 

 my trout roi, and the forest all around seemed alive with their ^ 

 moving forms. Nothing but sexual instinct could have produced ; 

 such a gathering. Usually she sits in her form in summer, brown ; 

 as the dead grass and old hairs forming it, in winter white as the - 

 snow drift in which her tawny paws have scratched a hollow ,bed^; 

 4c 



